Le Grand Content

Check this out. Makes you think. Now I know why we drink.

In the spirit of the new movie, "Stomp the Yard", which, contrary to what I first thought, it not about a group of young teenagers running a lawn care business, I give you a list of a few movies I'd like to see made, in no particular order.

• Purge the Stomach - starring of course, the Olsen Twins.
• Tread Heavily in the Garden - perhaps a sequel to the aforementioned?
• Bobble - an in-depth charachter study, intertwined with a heart-wrenching story of forbidden love between a long-snapper and a holder on the Dallas Cowboys field goal kicking unit. 

 

 

 

"Work or Die"... or Forward Racist Emails to Your Friends and Family

Got the email below from a "friend".  Below it is my personal response.

 

WEATHER BULLETIN -- Denver

 

Up here, in the "Mile-Hi City", we just recovered from a Historic event-- may I even say a "Weather Event" of "Biblical Proportions" --- with a historic blizzard of up to 44" inches of snow and winds to 90 MPH that broke trees in half, knocked down utility poles, stranded hundreds of motorists in lethal snow banks, closed ALL roads, isolated scores of communities and cut power to 10's of thousands.

 

FYI:

George Bush did not come.

FEMA did nothing.

No one howled for the government.

No one blamed the government.

No one even uttered an expletive on TV.

Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton did not visit.

Our Mayor did not blame Bush or anyone else.

Our Governor did not blame Bush or anyone else, either.

CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX or NBC did not visit - or report on this category five snowstorm.  

Nobody demanded $2,000 debit cards.

No one asked for a FEMA Trailer House.

No one looted.

Nobody - I mean nobody demanded the government do something.

Nobody expected the government to do anything, either.

No Larry King, No Bill O'Rielly, No Oprah, No Chris Mathews and No Geraldo Rivera.

No Shaun Penn, No Barbara Streisand, No Hollywood types to be found.

Nope, we just melted the snow for water.

Sent out caravans of SUV's to pluck people out of snow engulfed cars.  

The truck drivers pulled people out of snow banks and didn't ask for a  penny.  

Local restaurants made food and the police and fire departments delivered it to the snowbound families.  

Families took in the stranded people - total strangers.  

We fired up wood stoves, broke out coal oil lanterns or Coleman lanterns.  

We put on extra layers of clothes because up here it is "Work or Die".  

We did not wait for some affirmative action government to get us out of a mess created by being immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for 'sittin at home' checks.  

Even though a Category "5" blizzard of this scale has never fallen this early, we know it can happen and how to deal with it ourselves.  

 

 "In my many travels, I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate."

 

It does seem that way, at least to me.

 

I hope this gets passed on.

 

Maybe SOME people (Like NO and Wash. DC freeloaders) will get the message. The world does Not owe you a living. The Government and Tax $ are not your insurance company.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

My Response.

 

Comparing the recent blizzard in Colorado and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans demeans and belittles the misery that the residents of New Orleans have endured, and are still enduring.  It also shocks me that the true measure of your intelligence is so small that you would agree and forward this email, apart from the intellect of whomever sent you this email in the first place. 

 

The differences between the storm in Colorado and the hurricane in New Orleans are so blindingly obvious, that it seems only a simpleton with no discernable awareness of even the basic news events of the last 24 months would endeavor to compare the two storms.  But for those of you that live in a 5,000 square foot cave with brand new GE Profile Appliances and a 42 inch plasma TV that only broadcasts Fox News, let's review.

 

MORE THAN A THOUSAND PEOPLE DIED IN NEW ORLEANS BECAUSE OF THE INEPT LOCAL, STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO A MAN-MADE (NOT NATURAL) DISASTER. 

 

No, I’m not talking about Global Warming, Rush and Bill O, I’m talking about the levees.  The disaster wasn't the hurricane.  It was the levees breaking and flooding the city.  Whose fault was that?  You certainly can’t fault the folks living there.  What’s that?  I guess you can because they were “immobilized by a welfare program that trades votes for ‘sittin’ at home’ checks”.  If they’d gotten jobs or something, maybe they could have bought hurricane insurance to insure their homes against hurricane damage.  But it turns out many of them did purchase this crucial insurance.  However in a brilliant move to save themselves billions of dollars in claims, many of the nations largest insurance companies have deemed the disaster a flood, and not a hurricane, therefore denying thousands of claims for people that held hurricane insurance policies (a must have in New Orleans), but failed to insure against floods. 

 

MORE THAN A HALF-MILLION PEOPLE WERE DISPLACED TEMPORARILY FROM THEIR HOMES AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA.  MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED- THOUSAND WERE LEFT HOMELESS AFTER THEIR HOMES WERE COMPLETELY DESTROYED.  

 

Thousands of people that FOLLOWED INSTRUCTIONS and evacuated the city before the Hurricane lost their homes completely.  Yes, there were those that didn’t heed the warnings out of stubbornness, stupidity, or a lack of transportation out of the area, but far too many of them either drowned or were rescued from the roofs of their ruined homes, only to be taken to shelters that had no medical care, food or water.  Nah, those people should have fended for themselves, just like the tough folks in Colorado had to. 

 

How many people in Colorado lost their homes due to the blizzard?  I believe the final number has topped out at zero.  How many of them died?  I think five or six deaths can be "attributed" directly to the two blizzards.  You can be sure that if thousands were dead and hundreds of thousands were left homeless because of a Colorado snowstorm, Geraldo and Larry King would be there, and they’d be speculating on-air about when the tough folks of Colorado were going to get their $2,000 debit cards.  And in case you didn’t have the plasma TV tuned in that morning, the storm was national news for at least three days straight. 

 

There was and still are some aid operations going on for the tough, “work or die” folks in Colorado.  The cattle that are stranded in Southern Colorado are receiving emergency food drops from the government.  The Red Cross set up shelters for stranded travelers.  And Governor Bill Owens declared emergencies twice during the two storms so that Colorado would be eligible and would receive FEDERAL aid.  God forbid the people in New Orleans ask for a little help from the greatest country in the world, when they've lost what little they owned, are now homeless, jobless and are searching desperately for their own parents and their own children in the next state. 

 

So in Colorado, the folks are tough?  They just piled in their SUVs, filled the tanks up with three dollar a gallon gas and rushed out to stock their cupboards and stainless steel refrigerators with sparkling water, hot French bread and fresh shrimp cocktail, stopping at Park Meadows Mall to buy a new video game system for Hunter and Hailey so they would have something to do when they weren’t outside frolicking in the freshly fallen snow.  Because “out here it’s work or die”.  It must have been really rough.  Good for you, people of Colorado - for not bothering the rest of the world with pleas for help.  Good for you. 

 

And to the author of the original email – it seems to me it is just a very thinly disguised racist rant – “I have noticed that once one gets north of about 48 degrees North Latitude, 90% of the world's social problems evaporate” - tell me that's not filth from the mouth of someone that has a problem with people that are of a different ethnic background.  Maybe next time your Hummer is stuck in a drift, as you’re trying to get your car out of the Starbucks parking lot, may it be either myself or a displaced New Orleans resident that comes to offer aid, so that we can help you get your car out and then politely tell you to f**k off.